Character-Psyche Relations

[madelinemasoch]

Like it or not, these things come up while writing. Can any of you also hear your "muse" so to speak, if you have one? I've put a lot of thought into how writing a character could influence one's psyche. It's like they grow into you. I've experienced this to the extent that I think some of the thoughts that sometimes run through my head aren't my own, but Eleanor, the character's. She's very different from me (she's a hard femdom who likes having sex with her own body) but occupies a large part of my mind now. Sometimes, especially when I smoke weed, I feel that she is here with me. Sometimes she even talks to me, and get this, it's usually to tell me to keep writing the damn story. She's like, "Madeline, you have to write tomorrow" or like last night when I said "I was writing it! I added about a hundred words..." and she replied in her dismissive tone, "You added a hundred words. I could barely tell!" There was even one vision I had where she was literally sitting in my room, at my table, in my comfortable chair, wearing a flourishing red dress and all made up like she was about to go BBC hunting or something, and saying to me, "Just write it! You have to keep writing! You have to keep writing or I'll kill myself!" Yeah... I think she got a little confused in her own role. Still, I love her passion, and it's true in a strange way: if I don't finish the story, she ceases to exist. When she's with me, I feel so many things: anxious, nervous, warm, and oddly comforted, motivated but intimidated at the same time. She's so beautiful I might die! And all that she wants is that I continue to breathe life into her, to focus on her and give her all of my attention... she said so before, describing a life where I forgo even eating and sleeping just to write her. She's my vampire queen.

Does anyone experience anything at all similar to this? How do your characters interact with your own psyche?

 

[Stimtheone]

I remember someone saying that writers get mentally hounded by their characters. Honestly, not me... even if the characters I write are established archetypes that I could imagine in just about every situation. Sometimes I think that those are just "parts of us" that we sort of fragment away. Guess some might be in conflict with those. Mine just chill and are in this perfect harmony, possibly because I try to have those characters work together. Any "negative" ones do not get much characterization, not even headspace. At best, they might just be a misguided archetype.

 

[Altissimus]

I think I saw that film. I hated it.

 

[MillieDynamite]

My muse is a fantastic girl when she's around. When she's in Jamaica, the Bahamas, the Keys, or out in Hiawii sipping Mai Tais on the beach, she's a bitch. But when she whispers in my ear, yes, go on, that's lovely, she's worth her weightlessness in gold. Oh, wait, no, hells-bells, I'm sticking by that. When I make a mistake with a character, she screams, she/he/them/they wouldn't do that.

 

[madelinemasoch]

I remember someone saying that writers get mentally hounded by their characters. Honestly, not me... even if the characters I write are established archetypes that I could imagine in just about every situation. Sometimes I think that those are just "parts of us" that we sort of fragment away. Guess some might be in conflict with those. Mine just chill and are in this perfect harmony, possibly because I try to have those characters work together. Any "negative" ones do not get much characterization, not even headspace. At best, they might just be a misguided archetype.

I think it's safe to surmise from this that we write characters in two very different ways.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

My muse? No... she's silent to me, and I receive her gentle guidance in the form of emotion most of the time. I can tell when she's content. I can also tell when she's frustrated... and when she's on holiday. Right now she's doing a handsome impression of a power-drunk sadist, flooding me with ideas while I'm struggling to get ahold of my attention span long enough to focus on any one of the fifteen or so projects I've got.

My characters on the other hand? They might as well be a million personalities in my mental waiting room, all vying to be heard at once, and they will argue with me on how best to portray them through stories as much as they will push and pull themselves out of the boxes I've put them in. But who knows, maybe they're just extensions of my muse? I feel they're not quite the same, they exist by her grace, and not the other way around.

 

[madelinemasoch]

My muse? No... she's silent to me, and I receive her gentle guidance in the form of emotion most of the time. I can tell when she's content. I can also tell when she's frustrated... and when she's on holiday. Right now she's doing a handsome impression of a power-drunk sadist, flooding me with ideas while I'm struggling to get ahold of my attention span long enough to focus on any one of the fifteen or so projects I've got.

My characters on the other hand? They might as well be a million personalities in my mental waiting room, all vying to be heard at once, and they will argue with me on how best to portray them through stories as much as they will push and pull themselves out of the boxes I've put them in. But who knows, maybe they're just extensions of my muse? I feel they're not quite the same, they exist by her grace, and not the other way around.

Eleanor is both to me. It's sort of inexplicable.

When it comes to being a power-drunk sadist, she doesn't have to do impressions.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

Eleanor is both to me. It's sort of inexplicable.

When it comes to being a power-drunk sadist, she doesn't have to do impressions.

Your muse sounds like a saucy minx, mm, I like it!

 

[madelinemasoch]

Your muse sounds like a saucy minx, mm, I like it!

That's a perfect choice of words and I appreciate that.

 

[MillieDynamite]

My idea muse and my writing muse are two different muses. Idea Muse, Edith, never takes a break. She comes up and shouts in my ear, I've got a great idea. Here's your opening line, "Call me Ishmael." It's about a great honking giant white whale. So, I ask my writing muse, Diana, well, what goes next? "Sorry, you have reached Muse Diana's voice mail; I'm in Tahiti; leave your name, number, and brief description of the story you wish to write, and I'll contact you soonish. Unless I meet a really cute male muse, and then it'll be a little longer than soonish."

 

[AchtungNight]

My muse? No... she's silent to me, and I receive her gentle guidance in the form of emotion most of the time. I can tell when she's content. I can also tell when she's frustrated... and when she's on holiday. Right now she's doing a handsome impression of a power-drunk sadist, flooding me with ideas while I'm struggling to get ahold of my attention span long enough to focus on any one of the fifteen or so projects I've got.

My characters on the other hand? They might as well be a million personalities in my mental waiting room, all vying to be heard at once, and they will argue with me on how best to portray them through stories as much as they will push and pull themselves out of the boxes I've put them in. But who knows, maybe they're just extensions of my muse? I feel they're not quite the same, they exist by her grace, and not the other way around.

Your muse and my muse sound like bowling teammates, Seraph. Perhaps they have both also seen The Breakfast Club? Millie and Madeline’s muses can also be in the same bowling league.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

Your muse and my muse sound like bowling teammates, Seraph. Perhaps they have both also seen The Breakfast Club? Millie and Madeline’s muses can also be in the same bowling league.

I'd watch a series on them. 'The Muses of Author's Hangout'... and it's all catty, bombshell babes, suggestive puns, and bowling league antics.

 

[StillStunned]

The muse is a harsh mistress.

Mine wants me to tell her stories all night. And criticises every word.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

The muse is a harsh mistress.

Mine wants me to tell her stories all night. And criticises every word.

Have your tried placating her with chocolates? Flowers? The soul of your firstborn child?

 

[StillStunned]

Have your tried placating her with chocolates? Flowers? The soul of your firstborn child?

Unfortunately she seems to be one of those psychic vampires that feeds off brainwaves. The only way to get rid of her, and even this doesn't work all the time, is to hum the Imperial March from Star Wars over and over in my head. Apparently everyone is afraid of Darth Vader.

 

[AchtungNight]

I'd watch a series on them. 'The Muses of Author's Hangout'... and it's all catty, bombshell babes, suggestive puns, and bowling league antics.

Depict my muse’s chief avatar in that league as my character Lisa Coleman, who is the fantasy girlfriend I use for depression therapy IRL. She acts as understudy for the other characters at times and there’s personality bleeding.

Lisa is okay with flowers and chocolates but is out of the soul game since she swapped sides from demon to angel similar to Arue & Nocticula in the Pathfinder role playing universe. Or so this fantasy girlfriend tells me. If it’s a con game I’ll deal with that when I die.

And Darth Vader doesn’t work on her because she’s a big fan of Vader’s badass daughter.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I chat with my characters a lot, trying to get them to give me words I can write down. Adrian often won't shut up; Laura is stiff upper-lipped and it's pulling teeth to get her to tell me anything emotional. Other characters are in between, Rachel very defensive and sarcastic. Do the characters choosing to talk to me at any particular time represent my mood or feelings at the time? Probably.

 

[Voboy]

I never feel like a muse is guiding me. I feel like the characters are guiding themselves. So if the characters speak, it's not me they're speaking to.

When I don't get that feeling, it's usually a sign that the story is not much good.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I don't think I have any muse. I just create the world and move on. Sometimes I can get in my characters head.

Weed is kosher?

 

[madelinemasoch]

I don't think I have any muse. I just create the world and move on. Sometimes I can get in my characters head.

Weed is kosher?

LOL. I'm not the Jewish one, that's WollstonecraftWoman.

 

[Duleigh]

My muse in a nudger. She whispers a clue into my head and I sit down and begin to explore what she gave me. Soon the characters evolve, the plot springs forth and away we go. She stands back and watches while she eats the last of my cheese puffs...

 

[M_K_Babalon]

LOL. I'm not the Jewish one, that's WollstonecraftWoman.

Oh shit. My bad. lol

 

[LittleLilyCanWrite]

My muse is a paragon of self-absorption. God-tier. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t have to, has a man she trusts to do her speaking for her. He’s charming and devout but does not have art himself, and so loses a lot in translation. He looks just like me, too, fwiw, but male (more square, rugged) and handsome. She also has a dog. The dog is lazy, but mischievous, and she looks like me, too. There is also a part of me who seemingly only sleeps, and yet general consensus is she’s very sweet and hardworking and deserves the rest. The fifth part of me is over there. Ignore her. (She works harder than any of us and we would be nothing without her. But still. She could be nicer about it.)

I smoked weed tonight!

 

[MillieDynamite]

There is a character in a Western book set in 1865 where a villain was converted before his trial and sentenced to death. Before his conversion, he'd heard voices in his head encouraging his bad behavior. The voices were mentioned many times in the previous novel. The man is waiting for his hanging day, which looms a few months ahead of him. A young lady, whom he'd grown quite fond of, talks to him through the cell bars every day. On day, she said something like, "Buffalo Head says you've been curied by your conversions. Do you still hear those voices?"

"Well, don't burst his happy delusion, but the voices are still, but I can resist them now. You know the worst of those buggers has my own voice." Or something to that effect.

I don't think the writer ever identified what his problem was: psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, or severe depression. But for sure, he had one of them.

 

[StillStunned]

I just came across a quote by George Orwell on writing, where he compares writing a book to being "driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand."